Planned Feature Balancing and Repurposing Reputation Gain

[Levis]

Indeed its a 1 in 5 chance you get a rep increase

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If I understand correctly, the reduced reputatation increases may have to be increased a notch again.

 

[Levis]

This shouldnt be the way to increase rep.... If you want rep you should help the gouvenor etc, not notify People theire purse is sticking out....

 

[Pieter Boelen]

LOL! There is that, yes.

DOES helping the governor increase your reputation? For example the Ship Hunting Missions?

 

[Levis]

LOL! There is that, yes.

DOES helping the governor increase your reputation? For example the Ship Hunting Missions?

Now it does, also getting promoted gives you a nice boost in rep.
Oh but refusing a hunting quest will give you some rep loss .
Extract in PROGRAM

 

[Grey Roger]

Why? There can be all sorts of reasons you don't want to accept the hunting quest. In general, refusing to accept a job should not be a problem; promising to do something and then failing to do so is what should cost you reputation.

Also, where is the probability of reputation increase from talking to citizens controlled? I'd like to be able to set it myself.

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

Don't tell me we need a poll about the different ways to increase the player reputation.

 

[Levis]

for now its hard coded in the dialog file but I could set a toggle for you in the internal settings.

Hmmm....I might remove the reputation loss again then, or only add it when you have a higher rank for that nation maybe....

 

[Bartolomeu o Portugues]

By the way, in my opinion, we should decide definitely which are the different ways to increase or decrease the player reputation in the game (a poll for that?) because almost each one has his own opinion and customize that for each person would be a headache. As always , Pieter must know what is the best solution.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I do agree with @Levis that gaining a substantial amount of reputation should actually take a substantial player action as well.
Though @Grey Roger's idea to have the "reputation increase from NOT pick-pocketing" could be changed from random to "once per day" or several days.

Other idea would be to only have this take effect below a certain reputation level. For example, it will work as it always did but ONLY until you reach Bloke.
You shouldn't become known as a Hero unless you do something proper heroic, right?

Why? There can be all sorts of reasons you don't want to accept the hunting quest. In general, refusing to accept a job should not be a problem; promising to do something and then failing to do so is what should cost you reputation.

That is a fair point. Especially if the job is simply too much for you to handle at the time.

Also, where is the probability of reputation increase from talking to citizens controlled? I'd like to be able to set it myself.

PROGRAM\DIALOGS\Enc_walker.c (or was it Enc_walker_dialog.c?).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Reputation change balancing for @Levis to adjust some further. Suggestions:
- Remove reputation drop on refusing governor ship hunting mission
- Increase the reputation gain from regular town folk again, but put a cap on "Bloke" after which this no longer works

 

[Grey Roger]

Other idea would be to only have this take effect below a certain reputation level. For example, it will work as it always did but ONLY until you reach Bloke.
You shouldn't become known as a Hero unless you do something proper heroic, right?

Fine, so long as there is something heroic to do which will gain lots of reputation.

Shuffling cargo around is not heroic. Neither is a routine escort mission, unless someone attacks you and you have to fight to defend the ship you're escorting.

If you must put a cap on the level you can reach by giving money to beggars or telling people to be careful with their purses, I suggest capping it at "Matey", not "Bloke". That way you can quickly reach the level needed to do some side quests. "Bloke" is someone who is simply known not to rip you off, "Matey" is someone who is known to be actively helpful, "Dashing" sounds like the first level which needs to be earned by something a bit more extraordinary.

And since the topic of this thread is "Balance", perhaps also require you to do something truly dreadful to drop your reputation to "Bloody Terror". So you can easily drift between "Swindler" and "Matey", depending on how you behave in general, but to reach extremes either way would require extreme behaviour. If simply being nice to people can't get you to "Dashing" then minor routine naughtiness such as accepting stolen jewels or failing a cargo mission should not get you to "Bloody Terror". You should only get that if you have actually done something violent to scare people, e.g. killing a few unarmed citizens.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Grey Roger: All very valid and fair points. Agreed on all accounts.

I couldn't remember if Matey or Bloke was actually the higher of the two. Indeed it is nice to reach the level for certain sidequests without that being too difficult.

Additionally, I would like it if the game world would treat you more differently based on your reputation.
So it actually PAYS to be a hero. And to actually give an advantage to being a Bloody Terror so that can be done on purpose too.
Go for pure Blackbeard playing style, for example!

 

[Grey Roger]

One advantage of being Hero at the moment is that hostile shops will trade with you. Everybody likes you so you're welcome even where most people of your nationality would not be. Perhaps extend the same courtesy to Horror of the High Seas, though for a different reason - the shop keeper does not want to cross you and find out first hand why you got that reputation! (Can an additional dialogue line be added based on reputation? So that as usual the shop keeper says "I refuse to deal with someone of your nationality and reputation", and you then have the choice to say "Deal with me or deal with my sword!")

At sea, an enemy could be more likely to surrender to a Hero. The enemy captain knows you're a decent person who will spare his crew and ransom him, so there's no point losing lives unnecessarily, especially his own. Conversely, he's less likely to surrender to a Horror of the High Seas, but morale may drop more rapidly. The enemy captain knows you're utterly merciless and there's no chance he's going to live to see the next day, so it's brown trousers time. The enemy ship won't surrender but fear will affect their fighting ability.

Officer reactions when you hire them could be influenced by your reputation and theirs. A Bloody Terror or Horror of the High Seas won't want to work for a namby-pamby Dashing or Hero unless there's lots of extra gold in it for him. A Dashing or Hero won't want to work for a foul Bloody Terror or Horror of the High Seas at all. (Or, if you want to be subtle, hiring someone that radically opposed to your alignment will bring lots of trouble in the form of more enemies chasing you at sea and random people attacking you on land. Your officer is quietly doing all he can to betray you to his true employer...)

Several side quests are only available to good characters. Perhaps make one which is only available to evil characters? If nobody wants to write a new quest which involves a pirate in a tavern wanting help with some skulduggery, there's one possible candidate already. Claire Larousse might not be too interested in nice guys...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

All very good ideas. I like them quite a bit!

One advantage of being Hero at the moment is that hostile shops will trade with you. Everybody likes you so you're welcome even where most people of your nationality would not be. Perhaps extend the same courtesy to Horror of the High Seas, though for a different reason - the shop keeper does not want to cross you and find out first hand why you got that reputation! (Can an additional dialogue line be added based on reputation? So that as usual the shop keeper says "I refuse to deal with someone of your nationality and reputation", and you then have the choice to say "Deal with me or deal with my sword!")

There is actually already some code in place to make traders work with you based on fear.
But that is based on the amount of crew you have on your ship and not on your reputation, eg. the risk that you could just take the whole town by force if you so wished.

Officer reactions when you hire them could be influenced by your reputation and theirs. A Bloody Terror or Horror of the High Seas won't want to work for a namby-pamby Dashing or Hero unless there's lots of extra gold in it for him. A Dashing or Hero won't want to work for a foul Bloody Terror or Horror of the High Seas at all. (Or, if you want to be subtle, hiring someone that radically opposed to your alignment will bring lots of trouble in the form of more enemies chasing you at sea and random people attacking you on land. Your officer is quietly doing all he can to betray you to his true employer...)

There is already such a system in place when dealing with companion ships: Large difference in reputation between captains will lead to lower morale on their ships which can lead to mutiny and a companion ship turning against you.

Several side quests are only available to good characters. Perhaps make one which is only available to evil characters? If nobody wants to write a new quest which involves a pirate in a tavern wanting help with some skulduggery, there's one possible candidate already. Claire Larousse might not be too interested in nice guys...

I think the Nigel Blythe sidequest is already an "evil character" one that isn't open to nice guys.

 

[Grey Roger]

There is actually already some code in place to make traders work with you based on fear.
But that is based on the amount of crew you have on your ship and not on your reputation, eg. the risk that you could just take the whole town by force if you so wished.

If so, it doesn't work, unless it's a recent addition. I've had occasions when I went to a pirate town, they refused to trade, so I did take the whole town by force!

There is already such a system in place when dealing with companion ships: Large difference in reputation between captains will lead to lower morale on their ships which can lead to mutiny and a companion ship turning against you.

I know about that, but that works if there's any difference in alignment. A Swindler will cause a mutiny against a Matey, won't he? And a Horror of the High Seas won't cause mutinies for a Hero if the Hero isn't stupid enough to put him in charge of a ship. I was thinking that utterly opposed alignments wouldn't want to work for each other, or would cause additional trouble.

I think the Nigel Blythe sidequest is already an "evil character" one that isn't open to nice guys.

Only in as much as if you, i.e. the player, feel like playing evil then you'll side with Nigel instead of Artois. I believe you always have the choice to either intervene or stand aside and let Nigel kill Artois. (Or maybe it's because I always tend to go there relatively early in the game, when I'm either Neutral or Bloke. Perhaps a Dashing or Hero does not have the option to stand aside?)

What I'm less certain of is a couple of incidents during "Tales of a Sea Hawk". When you're hunting Raoul Rheims and you ask at the Nevis pirate settlement tavern about him, Ines Diaz denies all knowledge of him, but there are lines in her dialog file where she tells you more. Alternatively, when you leave the tavern a man offers to sell you information, and I have a vague memory from some time ago of having an option I haven't seen since - you can threaten him and force him to tell you what he knows. Then there's the time you're retrieving documents for Padre Domingues in exchange for a day in the church library, you meet Ferro Cerezo in Sao Jorge tavern and you can either buy the papers from him or threaten him, and under some circumstances he'll take the threat seriously and hand them over for free. An evil reputation may give you some leverage in these cases.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If so, it doesn't work, unless it's a recent addition. I've had occasions when I went to a pirate town, they refused to trade, so I did take the whole town by force!

Not recent at all; been there forever. PROGRAM\Characters\CharacterUtilite.c in the TradeCheck function:

  // Store/shipyard owner can be intimidated if player has three times more crew than the town has troops
   int ttroops = GetTownNumTroops(Locations[locIdx].townsack);
   int ptroops = GetSquadronCrewQuantity(char);

   if(ptroops > ttroops * 3) strengthcomp = true;
[...]
    // If their nation is better than Neutral, you are Swindler or better and can intimidate them
     if(rel  >= REL_AMNESTY  && rep >= TRADEREP_STRENGTH && strengthcomp)   return true;

I know about that, but that works if there's any difference in alignment. A Swindler will cause a mutiny against a Matey, won't he? And a Horror of the High Seas won't cause mutinies for a Hero if the Hero isn't stupid enough to put him in charge of a ship. I was thinking that utterly opposed alignments wouldn't want to work for each other, or would cause additional trouble.

Absolutely, it would be great if that concept could be further expanded on. Right now this tiny bit of "officer personality" is extremely limited.
And that is something that I would REALLY like to see in the game to make it actually make a real difference!

Looks like something like that WAS once intended to be put in the game:

characters[GetCharacterIndex("Nigel Blythe")].loyality = makeint(characters[GetCharacterIndex("Nigel Blythe")].loyality) - 1;

I've also seen code referring to good/bad alignment for characters. But clearly that idea was never finished in the original game.

Only in as much as if you, i.e. the player, feel like playing evil then you'll side with Nigel instead of Artois. I believe you always have the choice to either intervene or stand aside and let Nigel kill Artois. (Or maybe it's because I always tend to go there relatively early in the game, when I'm either Neutral or Bloke. Perhaps a Dashing or Hero does not have the option to stand aside?)

I thought Nigel wouldn't be willing to join you if you had too high reputation.
But looking through his dialog, I can find no reference to that actually being the case.

What I'm less certain of is a couple of incidents during "Tales of a Sea Hawk". When you're hunting Raoul Rheims and you ask at the Nevis pirate settlement tavern about him, Ines Diaz denies all knowledge of him, but there are lines in her dialog file where she tells you more. Alternatively, when you leave the tavern a man offers to sell you information, and I have a vague memory from some time ago of having an option I haven't seen since - you can threaten him and force him to tell you what he knows. Then there's the time you're retrieving documents for Padre Domingues in exchange for a day in the church library, you meet Ferro Cerezo in Sao Jorge tavern and you can either buy the papers from him or threaten him, and under some circumstances he'll take the threat seriously and hand them over for free. An evil reputation may give you some leverage in these cases.

I think evil reputation is indeed checked in some of those cases.
But the examples are few and far between. Could definitely be improved upon.

 

[Levis]

About the reputation. Would it be an idea that if you are horror of the high seas there is a chance when you board a ship they will surrender sooner during fighting. For example you only have to clear one deck or sometimes they won't even fight.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Something like that would make sense, yes. We should indeed make it a bit "nicer" to be a bloody bastard. Otherwise there is no point.

 

[Grey Roger]

About the reputation. Would it be an idea that if you are horror of the high seas there is a chance when you board a ship they will surrender sooner during fighting. For example you only have to clear one deck or sometimes they won't even fight.

Quite the reverse. If you are Horror of the High Seas then they won't want to surrender at all, the reason being that it won't do them any good as you're likely to kill them all anyway. Whereas if you're Hero then they know they can expect to be treated well so there's no point fighting to the death.

The benefit of being Horror of the High Seas might be that morale drops more quickly. Doesn't that have some effect on their ability to fight, e.g. hit points? You know the captain attacking you is utterly ruthless and has a history of taking bigger ships than his own, so you're doomed - it's brown trousers time! So the enemy won't surrender but your fights should be easier.